‘Mind-reading’ car keeps drivers focused

A “smart” dashboard that reduces the amount of information displayed to drivers during stressful periods on the road could be available in just five years, say German engineers.

A team from the Technical University of Berlin found they could improve reaction times in real driving conditions by monitoring drivers’ brains and reducing distractions during periods of high brain activity.

They were able to speed up driver’s reactions by as much as 100 milliseconds. It might not sound much, but this is enough to reduce braking distance by nearly 3 metres when travelling at 100 kilometres per hour, says team leader Klaus-Robert Müller.

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“In a real life situation this could be enough to prevent an accident or stop someone being injured, or worse,” he says. “We now have the brain-interface technology to make this a reality.”

Test drives

The researchers used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to measure drivers’ brain activity.

In previous experiments, Müller has shown it is feasible to set up EEG devices that decode only the brain activity generated by concentrating on particular task, such as driving a car. This involves filtering out other signals, including those caused by the random movement of facial muscles.

“This used to take 100 hours. We can now get rid of all the outside ‘noise’ and ‘train’ the device in 20 minutes, thanks to intelligent data analysis methods,” Müller says.

Armed with the technology, his team carried out tests on 12 male and five female drivers in ordinary, non-rush hour conditions on a German highway.

The volunteers were assigned three tasks, each requiring slightly more mental effort, to perform simultaneously. The first task was to drive at 100 km/h. The second, slightly more demanding objective was to hit a button mounted on the left or right of the steering wheel every 7.5 seconds when prompted.

The third task involved firstly counting down in steps of 27 from a randomly generated number between 800 and 900 for two minutes; then focusing on one of two voices played simultaneously inside the vehicle.

Growing distractions

During the experiments EEG electrodes attached to the volunteers’ heads monitored brain activity.

Crucially, when brain activity rose above a predefined threshold, the brain-interface device was rigged up to switch off the secondary task – clicking the steering wheel buttons. Being freed from this task speeded up subjects’ reactions times by an average of 100 milliseconds.

In a real-life situation, such a device might be programmed to switch off superfluous information systems when the drivers’ brain is already over-loaded by other stimuli, such as a conversation with other passengers, says Müller.

The proliferation of in-car technology – such as warning signals, satellite navigation systems, and head-up displays ¬– make driver distraction a pressing issue.

Sticky sensors

Transport expert Ben Heydecker of University College London, UK, applauds the work.

“This is very interesting research that has shown these sorts of systems can be used,” he told New Scientist. “It will need to be developed and refined before it can be used practically, but it does suggest some very exciting possibilities in car safety.”

Francisco Sepulveda, a brain-computer interface specialist at Essex University, Colchester, UK, says the Berlin group had done “significant work on the detection of movement-related intentions using EEG”, but adds that being able to decode brain signals reliably make take another 10 years at least.

Müller concedes that another major challenge is developing less intrusive EEG equipment. Standard sensors require subjects to be covered in sticky gel and even the newer, dry sensors must be attached all over the head.

In as yet unpublished research, Müller shows that contactless sensors work for electrocardiograms.

“That’s very encouraging,” he says. “But the strength of signal received by an ECG from the heart is 100 times stronger than that received by an EEG, so there’s a lot of development to be done. But I am confident that in five year’s time we will have something.”